What the Hell Is ‘Pokemon GO’? A Short Explainer

There’s a new Big Thing going on right now. You’ve probably seen people talking about it obsessively on social media, and depending on where you live you may have seen people playing it in real life.

I’m talking about “Pokemon GO,” obviously. But if you’re not familiar with Pokemon, then this might all seem very confusing. But fear not! Probably a majority of the people playing it right now aren’t into Pokemon either. I know I’m not, and I’ve been all over it. You don’t become a worldwide phenomenon in a handful of days (“Pokemon GO” began rolling out in region-specific versions of app stores on July 4) by only pulling in the core fanbase.

Now, what follows is a detailed discussion of the game itself and why people like to play it. If you want a broader explanation of “Pokemon GO” as a pop culture event, you might also want to check out our meme-based explainer of the game as a pop culture phenomenon by clicking the link below

“Pokemon GO” is a free “augmented reality” game for iOS and Android smart devices in which players must physically move around the real world in order to capture Pokemon (short for pocket monsters), which are fantastical creatures from the ever-popular video game/collectible card game/anime franchise of the same name.

After you open the app and create an account, you’re greeted by your avatar standing in the middle of a map of wherever you are. The app tracks your location via GPS as you walk around looking for Pokemon and visiting Pokestops.

When you’re in the vicinity of a Pokemon, your phone will vibrate and the Pokemon you’ve encountered will appear on the map. You touch it, and then the app will switch to its camera mode, where it shows the Pokemon standing wherever you happen to be. Like this Meowth acting like a tourist next to Danny DeVito‘s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

To catch a Pokemon, you need Pokeballs, which you can obtain by checking in at Pokestops. Pokestops tend to be attached to local landmarks or curiosities: churches, fountains, parks and the like. You get within range of these spots and select them on the app map and it spits out an assortment of items, including those Pokeballs. We’ll talk about the other items in a moment.

In Los Angeles, where I live, the density of Pokemon and Pokestops is of course extremely high. When I walk to the 7-Eleven a block from my apartment I’m likely to catch one or two, and I pass by three Pokestops. If I walk to the subway station ten minutes away, it ends up turning into a much-longer journey if I’m playing the game.

So there’s, like, millions of people playing this, right? What’s that about?

I’d gander there are two main reasons why so many people have jumped on the “Pokemon GO” bandwagon: the social aspect, and the funny pictures.

“Pokemon GO” is a sort of universal icebreaker because of the whole scavenger hunt angle. It’s an excuse to talk to people and make new acquaintances, even if it’s just for a few moments.

If you went out in L.A. on Friday or Saturday night and didn’t know what was going on, you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

It looked like L.A. on the weekend. Bars and restaurants were full, with folks standing outside their entrances smoking cigarettes. Groups of friends wandered the streets going wherever they were going. It was the typical bustle.

But players can tell pretty easily who other players are. The way they hold their phones while they’re walking around, for one thing — it looks like they’re getting directions from a GPS app. And then suddenly they stop and hold up their phones like they’re trying to take a picture. Except they’re pointing their phones in different directions and cursing a lot because they’re flinging Pokeballs at a Pokemon and missing.

Right after downloading the app a few days ago I took a walk around my block, and someone driving by stopped and asked if I was playing Pokemon GO. Another time, a guy across the street randomly yelled at my friends and I to ask if we were looking for the Onyx Pokemon — we were, in fact, doing just that.

We also ventured up to Barnsdall Park in Los Feliz, and found the area covered in players — the park had a bunch of Pokestop and a gym where you can make your Pokemon fight other Pokemon, so it was kind of a social hub. People hanging out in the park, doing Pokemon.

So you wander around with your friends finding Pokemon, and you meet random strangers and it’s usually all good fun. On the other hand, a teenager in Wyoming stumbled upon a dead body while she was looking for Pokemon, so your results may vary.

Beyond the social stuff, you get a lot of funny pictures out of it — like goofy Snapchat filters, but with Pokemon. Here’s one of me with a Growlithe in my lap that I’ll treasure forever:

You get these good pictures and then you toss ‘em on Instagram and Twitter and everybody has a good time. We also have lots of memes to share and enjoy, as a bonus.

There’s gotta be more to this, right? Like, what’s the point?

Yep, there’s more. The purpose of catching all those Pokemon is so you can make them fight.

To fight, you have to go to a gym, which you’ll see on the map as a tall tower with a Pokemon sitting on top. That one sitting there is the current champion of that gym, and the color of the tower indicates which of the three Pokemon trainer teams it belongs to.

When you reach level 5, you’ll be prompted to join one of three teams: Mystic, Valor or Instinct. You’ll represent that team when you make your Pokemon fight at the gym. It’s a fight for territory in your city.

You’ll collect more powerful Pokemon as you level up by walking around and collecting them and checking in at Pokestops. You can also make the one you have better by using items you earn by collecting a bunch of Pokemon of a certain type, and you can also evolve the Pokemon into new forms. So if the ones at the gym seem hopelessly overwhelming, don’t worry about it just yet. It’s just a matter of sticking with it.

While “Pokemon GO” is a free game, you can spend money on coins which can in turn be used to buy items: Pokeballs, egg incubators, extra storage space for Pokemon or items and anything else aside from the Pokemon themselves. The purchasable items are really just time savers, though, as you don’t need them to do anything.

There are several different items you’ll be given for free at Pokestops, including Pokeballs, items to heal or revive Pokemon in battle, and eggs.

These eggs are, of course, Pokemon eggs. You hatch them by placing them in an incubator and then walking whatever distance the eggs calls for. The distance you need to walk gives you an idea of how powerful the Pokemon inside will be: 2 kilometers is not going to be a great one, but 10 kilometers probably will give you something awesome.

Another key item is incense, which when used it will lure Pokemon to you for 30 minutes. You won’t find incense at a Pokestop, though you will get a free one sometimes when you level up. For the most part, though, if you want incense you’ll have to spend real money on it.

You can also buy a lure module that can be placed on Pokestops that will draw Pokemon to the vicinity for everyone. Since everybody can see when you’re luring Pokemon to a spot, it also will draw other players who may or may not be your new best friends.

Why should I get involved in this?

I’m just the messenger. You gotta make your own decisions. I’ve been having a good time, though I’m not sure I’ll keep up with it for too long unless I just want to use it as a reason to go outside more often. If you’re leaning toward giving it a try, now is the time — as with anything that burns this hot, there’s a good chance it will burn itself out relatively quickly.

23 'Pokemon GO' Memes to Help You Understand the New Pokemon Craze (Photos)

Do you not get the hysteria over "Pokemon GO"? We got your back. As you click through this gallery of memes, we'll explain what they mean and why they speak to the popularity of the game as a social and pop culture event. Because the appeal of "Pokemon GO" is as much in talking about it as it is actually playing it.

First and foremost, "Pokemon GO" is about taking funny pictures of Pokemon doing things in the very real place you are in. This is a great example of that: set some booze next to a Pokemon and act like its there to hang out and party with you.

In a lot of places, "Pokemon GO" has given players a surprising sense of community -- at happy hour on Sunday, for example, my friends and I met several random people just because they were also playing. "Pokemon GO" players can spot each other from a mile away.

In our incessant search for Pokemon, we often end up in strange places. No, we don't usually break into people's homes. But the point is just you never really know where "Pokemon GO" will take you.

Taking the "look at the weird places we go for Pokemon" in a more sitcom-ish direction, this person accidentally ends up in a job interview.

A lot of couch potatoes (like me) downloaded "Pokemon GO" and spent several days in a row walking long distances -- and then we got home and found our legs were real sore because we don't usually walk eight miles in a day. I guess it's good for us, probably.

While it may seem as if everyone is head over heels for "Pokemon GO," there are plenty of party poopers out there who just want everybody to shut up about it. The cop in this meme represents those people.

However, most police officers depicted in "Pokemon GO" memes are just as enthusiastic about playing as everyone else.

You're really supposed to play "Pokemon GO" on foot, but it's certainly possible to catch Pokemon while in the car. But "Pokemon GO" while driving is like texting while driving times a million. Don't do it!

Since you obviously shouldn't do "Pokemon GO" while driving, you'll definitely want to get your passengers involved. But if they refuse to catch Pokemon for you, that's a major breach of etiquette.

A cautionary tale of how it might go for you if you do decide to Pokemon while driving despite the risks.

The police department in Sarasota, Fla., posted this PSA meme on its Facebook page -- notably, it features a Pokemon photoshopped into a picture of a police car, rather than using a picture taken in the "Pokemon GO" app, making it a legit dad meme.

"Pokemon GO" was first released on July 6, but only in Australia and New Zealand -- its launch has been a slow rollout across the globe. So while it was taking the U.S. by storm over the weekend, a lot of places still didn't have it, including the United Kingdom.

Here's a Pokemon fan looking longingly out the window, demonstrating the pain of the wait for the app to release in the UK while everybody in America was out having fun over the week.

A popular meme type in general is where a girl wants a boy to come over to hook up, but he doesn't want to because of whatever nerd activity he's currently involved with (usually video games). But, in a twist, the girl also is doing that same nerd thing, and the boy comes running.

Demonstrating just how obsessed some players are, this meme shows a fan continuing to play even while pulled over for a traffic violation.

The pinnacle of pop culture is this melding of "Breaking Bad" with "Pokemon GO." When you reach level 5 in the game, you join one of three teams, which you'll represent when you make your Pokemon fight other Pokemon at gyms. Which means technically a lot of these other folks walking around are your enemies.

Some of the best funny "Pokemon GO" pictures are of the really big ones. Onyx are also good for this.

It's probably a good thing the launch rollout for "Pokemon GO" has been kinda slow -- the app requires you to be connected online for it to work, and over the weekend there were times when it would kick players out every few minutes, or would prevent anyone from logging in as the servers powering it were overloaded by the massive number of people trying to play at once -- as we see in this meme.

If you're the sort of person who walked around a lot before you started playing "Pokemon GO," you might have noticed that a trip you take every day suddenly takes twice as long or more as you constantly stray from the path looking for some rare Pokemon the app tells you is nearby.

There's always been a pretty stark generational divide over Pokemon, as one of the defining "get off my lawn" entertainment properties geared toward children back in the '90s and aughts. So for a lot of millennials, it's amusing to talk to mom and dad about it, because they tend to be pretty baffled by it.

There are a lot of variations on this "pointing a gun at a Pokemon" meme. Yet another example of the sort of goofy and dumb pictures you can do with "Pokemon GO" -- thought we'd recommend not doing this in public.

At the risk of beating a dead horse with these "exaggeration of how obsessed people are with 'Pokemon GO'" memes, here's a commercial airline pilot going off his flightplan to chase a Pokemon.

We use the power of memes to help you understand exactly why everybody is freaking out about this weird phone game

Do you not get the hysteria over "Pokemon GO"? We got your back. As you click through this gallery of memes, we'll explain what they mean and why they speak to the popularity of the game as a social and pop culture event. Because the appeal of "Pokemon GO" is as much in talking about it as it is actually playing it.